Kneebody

Worldwide

In their almost two-decade history, the Grammy-nominated band Kneebody has created a genre and style all its own. Their sound is explosive rock energy and high-level nuanced chamber ensemble playing set within the frames of highly wrought compositions that are balanced with adventurous no-holds-barred improvising.

Kneebody is keyboardist Adam Benjamin, trumpeter Shane Endsley, saxophonist Ben Wendel, and drummer/bassist Nate Wood. The band has no leader or rather, each member is the leader; they’ve developed their own musical language, inventing a unique cueing system that allows them each to change the tempo, key, style, and more in an instant.

The group met in their late teens while at The Eastman School of Music and Cal Arts, became fast friends, and converged together as Kneebody amid the vibrant and eclectic music scene of Los Angeles in 2001. Since then, each band member has amassed an impressive list of credits and accomplishments over the years all while the band has continued to thrive and grow in reputation, solidifying a fan base around the world.

In 2005, Kneebody released their debut self-titled album Kneebody on Dave Douglas’ Greenleaf Music Label. Low Electrical Worker followed in 2007 on the Colortone Label. A collection of 13 original songs, Low Electrical Worker was hailed by saxophonist Joshua Redman as one of his ‘favorite albums of 2007.’ In the spring of 2009, Kneebody and vocalist Theo Bleckmann released 12 Songs of Charles Ives on the Winter & Winter label and received a GRAMMY nomination in the ‘classical crossover’ category. 2013 saw the release of The Line for Concord Records. In 2015, Kneebody’s groundbreaking collaboration with electronic musician Daedelus on Kneedelus was released on Flying Lotus’ imprint Brainfeeder records to praise from critics and audiences alike. In 2017, Motéma Music released Kneebody’s Anti-Hero. 2019 brought back-to-back releases from Kneebody on Edition Records. In 2017, Motéma Music released Kneebody’s Anti-Hero. 2019 brought back-to-back releases from Kneebody on Edition Records. In the Spring, they released By Fire, an EP featuring an eclectic selection of covers from John Legend to Soundgarden. Followed by the Fall release of Chapters, the group’s first full-length album as a quartet, mixing deep grooves and deft melodies with a wide range of guests including Becca Stevens, Gretchen Parlato, Michael Mayo, Gerald Clayton, and Josh Dion.

From JazzTimes
Mark Guiliana Meets Kneebody
Before a rare joint performance in New York, the five musicians sit down to talk about double drumming, standup MRIs, and animatronic teddy bears
BY: KEN MICALLEF
When the 2020 New York Winter Jazzfest picked drummer/composer Mark Guiliana as its artist in residence for 2020, the festival’s organizers asked him to enlist performers for...

From The News Source
*And then there were four: Kneebody settle into life as a quartet *
By: HANNAH EDGAR
“As far as album titles go, Kneebody’s Chapters is pretty damn on the nose. The record, which came out in October, is the instrumental avant-pop-jazz omnivores’ first full-length since they announced the departure of founding bassist Kaveh Rastegar last February,...

From WBGO
Daedelus and Members of Kneebody Discuss Their Bond, Before a Winter Jazzfest Marathon
By: SIMON RENTNER
New York City’s Winter JazzFest stretches to Brooklyn for the first time this year ‘” arguably offering its best punch of innovative programming, with artists like Kneebody and Daedelus both performing at the Music Hall of Williamsburg as a part of tomorrow’s...

From All About Jazz
Kneebody: Chapters
By: MIKE JACOBS
“Chapters’“the title of Kneebody’s 2019 release’“has a certain appropriateness, as it definitely marks several new ones for the band. One being that lyric- oriented songs account for nearly half of the material on the album. Technically, vocals are nothing new to Kneebody. The band included one track with vocals on their...

Do Not Ignore This! This is the highly inventive, original and compelling new album from explosive US quartet Kneebody. The music is adventurous, exuberant and powerful: music for a new generation, music that will inspire and excite, coming from a band with a committed and distinctive sound. From the off, it commands your attention and surprises at every turn. Kneebody...

From www.knkx.org
Kneebody gets comfortable in the KNKX studios
By: ABE BEESON
“All hands were on deck for this double-decker studio session. Portland’s Trio Subtonic would play the opening role both in the KNKX studios and at their Earshot Jazz Festival show at Nectar Lounge that night.
Earshot’s John Gilbreath walked in with custom espresso orders and pastries for each...

From Earmilk
Kneebody announces new album with sizzling single “Spectra” [Premiere]
By: Evan Crandell
“For years now, Kneebody has been at the forefront of progressive, genre-bending music. Since their formation back in 2001, the group has amassed an impressive collection of works that showcase their adventurous approach to songwriting and unapologetically fiery style. Today on EARMILK they are announcing the...

From Drum Channel
Kneebody ‘” Band Clinic and Interview
We are excited to sit down with some of today’s most prominent jazz musicians and discuss their ideas of improvising and music. Kneebody consists of Ben Wendel (Tenor), Nate Wood (Drums), Shane Endsley (Trumpet), Adam Benjamin (Piano), Kaveh Rastegar (Bass).
Kneebody shares a bit of their secret language and how they...

From Amazon Music
Congratulations to the IMN Artists who made Amazon Music’s ‘Best Jazz Songs of 2018’ Playlist!
Brad Mehldau for “Spiral” off of Seymour Reads the Constitution!
Joshua Redman’s Still Dreaming for “Unanimity” off of Still Dreaming
Joe Lovano & Dave Douglas Sound Prints for “Dream State” off of Scandal
Kneebody for “How High” (single)
Ben Wendel for “July”...

From AfterFM
Interview: Kneebody
Kneebody is a five-piece jazz band whose sound reaches across all genres. KGNU’s Indra Raj catches up with Kneebody’s bassist, Kaveh Rastegar, and trumpet player, Shane Endsley, to talk about Kneebody’s music, growing up playing jazz in the Denver music scene, and their exciting new covers project.
Read more here

From Jazz in Europe
Ben Wendel Interview
By: Darrell Craig Harris
Ben Wendel is a Grammy-nominated Canadian-American Saxophonist, writer, producer and educator that has been a successful bandleader, sideman and is a founding member of the Grammy-nominated urban jazz group ‘Kneebody’ having received numerous awards including the ASCAP Jazz Composers Award and many other awards including within the classical music...

From The Mercury News
L.A. band Kneebody brings epic collection of sounds to SF Bay Area gigs
By: Andrew Gilbert
From the very beginning, Kneebody resisted all efforts at stylistic categorization. Formed in Los Angeles by five conservatory-trained musicians, the band drew on rock and hip-hop, electronica and new music, all filtered through an improvisational sensibility honed in a variety...

From WGBO.org
New Music by Christian Sands, Walter Smith III, Kneebody and More, in Take Five
By: Nate Chinen
It’s no secret that Kneebody has the right stuff to make a singer sound better. The band has collaborated with vocalists ranging from Theo Bleckmann to Busdriver, but this track ‘” featuring Inara George, of The Bird and the Bee ‘”...

From DJAM
Kneeboody, Well-Oiled Anarchy
By: Paul Verdeau
The American quintet returns with Anti-Hero, an album in the image of their music, square and crazy at the same time. A perfect alchemy, which, according to them, is almost a “miracle”.
When asked the question, saxophonist Ben Wendel is categorical: the title of the last album of Kneebody, Anti-Hero, is not...

From All About Jazz
Kneebody At Johnny Brenda’s
By: Mike Jacobs
Generally when a band announces that a group member is waylaid and can’t make the gig, those in the audience start to resign themselves to an evening of subconscious apologetics’”(“It’s not the same but pretty good for a guy subbing on short notice.” or “They’re doing pretty well for...

From Downbeat
Editor’s Picks: Kneebody, Anti-Hero’
By: Frank Alkyer
Clocking in at just under an hour, Anti-Hero revs you up, the chills you out. And stick around for that hidden outro at the end. The musicians in Kneebody know where this music has been and where they want to take it. On Anti-Hero, they’ve created a vehicle that lets us...

From DL Media
Kneebody Returns with Ninth Studio Album, Anti-Hero –
Capturing Grammy® Nominated Quintet’s
Fiery Energy From Live Performances
Available March 3 on Motéma Music
Compositions Inspired by Loss &
Civic Responsibility Through Musical Exploration
Sixteen years in and the genre-bending electric jazz collective Kneebody is stronger than ever. On the heels of their recent groundbreaking collaboration with electronic...

from thecreatorsproject.vice.com
Daedelus’ Chaotic Jazz Collab Meets Abstract 3D Animations [Premiere]
By; Dj Pangburn
Apart from artists like Squarepusher or Four Tet’s collaboration with drummer Steve Reid, the fusion of jazz and electronic music is fraught with all sorts of peril. Theoretically it should work. Practically, it rarely does. But LA-based electronic artist Daedelus’ collaboration with the band Kneebody enters...

from thisisjazzstandard.com
Interview with Kneedelus/Kneebody bassist Kaveh Rastegar*
Supergroups are an idea we’re all familiar with; the collaborative album released on the Brainfeeder label by Kneedelus, the coming together of jazz-rock five piece Kneebody and producer Daedelus, is no exception. As they prepare for their show at Rich Mix on May 21st as part of Serious Space Shoreditch, bassist Kaveh...

From chicagoreader.com
Kneedelus
By Peter Margasak
“Since forming 15 years ago, New York quintet Kneebody have been honing a supertight, postfusion sound and perfecting an electric blend of moody lyricism and deeply propulsive grooves. All five members are composers that bring in a wide range of ideas and influences. Rhythms from funk and IDM collide with atmospheric melodic schemes of...

From BrooklynVegan
pics: Kneedelus and Cuddle Magic at Le Poisson Rouge
By BrooklynVegan Staff
Kneedelus, the collaboration between glitch-hop producer Daedelus and jazz group Kneebody, brought their tour to NYC for a show at Le Poisson Rouge on Sunday, March 13. We’ve got photos of the show, and you can check them out below.
Meanwhile, Daedelus is also playing SXSW...

from wsj.com
Electronic Music Meets Post-Bop Jazz
By: Jim Fusilli
Ben Wendel and Alfred Darlington began playing music together while at Santa Monica High School in the early 1990s, jamming as a jazz sax-and-bass duo in its auditorium or on the nearby Third Street Promenade in a combo that included Terrace Martin, a linchpin in today’s rich music scene here....

activate.metroactive.com
A Prolific Pair of Musical Forces Unite to Form Kneedelus
By: Tad Malone
L.A.-based producer Daedelus has a reputation as a musical wizard. Known for his genre-hopping, unique brand of electronic music, he is a veteran of the L.A. scene and his work a constantly evolving gem in a sea of monotonous electronica. Kneebody is a jazz-fusion band based...

from kqed.org
3 New Jazz Albums by California Artists: Brian Andres, David James, Kneedelus
By: Andrew Gilbert
Where James’ album seemed to come out of nowhere, the collaboration between the great avant funk jazz combo Kneebody and Los Angeles producer and beat master Daedalus (aka Alfred Darlington) comes with a great deal of history. A digital release on Brainfeeder, the...

The members of Kneebody, an avant-garde jazz collective, have been playing gigs together for so long that they don’t even live in the same parts of the country; they simply fly from their respective locations in New York, Los Angeles, Denver and Reno and jump on stage together whenever they book a show.
To read the full article click here

from vice.com
WATCH: Daedelus and Kneebody Enter a Tech-Jazz ‘Drum Battle’ in Their New Video
By: Patrick Lyons
The tradition of “drum battles” in jazz dates all the way back to the big band era, when Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich forever revolutionized percussion with their show-stopping rhythmic duels. They showed that pounding the skins could be more than tempo-driven...

From The Huffington Post
15 for ’15: Favorite Music of the Year
By Ari Sadowitz
Kneebody & Daedalus – Kneedalus
This Brainfeeder release flew pretty far under the radar thanks in large part to The Epic, Kamasi Washington’s sprawling jazz opus, but Flying Lotus’s label kept pushing even after all the accolades. Kneebody and Daedalus are so well integrated that...

From LA Weekly
Thanks To Brainfeeder, West Coast Jazz Is Cool Again
By Jeff Weiss
In the near future, when we’re listening to music streams on implanted iMolars, we’ll remember 2015 as the year that we learned to listen to more jazz.
After a half-century of false obituaries, the genre re-emerged with greater vitality than anyone could have predicted. Fueled...

from nytimes.com
Jazz Intuition, American Roots and Double Hybrids
By: Nate Chinen
Hybridism often leads the agenda when an electronic producer aligns with a jazz ensemble ‘” but what if both parties are already hybridized to the hilt? The Los Angeles label Brainfeeder has lately been in the business of answering that question, with albums like ‘Kneedelus,’ a convergence of...

_from latimes.com
THE BEST L.A. ALBUMS OF 2015
Saxophonist Ben Wendel and DJ Alfred Darlington, friends since high school, have each cultivated tremendous success making music on the outer limits of imagination and innovation, Wendel with the Grammy-nominated progressive jazz group Kneebody, and Darlington as a pioneering DJ and electronic artist under his moniker, Daedelus. Kneebody and Daedelus have collaborated...

from pitchfork.com
Kneebody and Daedelus
By: Ron Hart
Under his Flying Lotus codename, Steven Ellison continues to push his distinctive strain of abstract hip-hop into the direction paved by his Great Aunt Alice and Great Uncle John. You could hear the family history coursing through the interstellar spaces he explored with his cousin Ravi on 2010’s Cosmogramma and that Herbie...

from factmag.com
Daedelus and instrumental quintet Kneebody team up for LP on Brainfeeder
Musical polymath Daedelus and Los Angeles-based instrumental quintet Kneebody have teamed up for a collaborative album set for release on Brainfeeder in November.
Titled Kneedelus, the album is described by the label as ‘a multi-headed beast straddling rock, jazz, and electronic music’ that explores the theory of...

from pitchfork.com
Kneebody and Daedelus
“Drum Battle”
By: Marcus J. Moore
Let’s stop and acknowledge the great run Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label is having. Between his own album, You’re Dead!, Kamasi Washington’s The Epic, and Thundercat’s The Beyond / Where the Giants Roam, the imprint blurs the line between jazz and alt-soul, putting unique twists on sophisticated genres. “Drum Battle”,...

KNEEDELUS
A Collaboration Between Kneebody + Daedelus
Expands the Pantheon of Instrumental Music
Eponymous Debut Available November 27 via Brainfeeder
Listen to ‘Drum Battle’ from Kneedelus
The theory of technological singularity ‘” the notion that humans and computer technology will increasingly blend together ‘” has been explored in many forms of popular culture since it’s conception. Over the past two...

from theartsdesk.com
theartsdesk at Love Supreme: Van Morrison & Dianne Reeves
By: Matthew Wright
On Sunday, the role of genre-bending was passed on to Kneebody, a Californian fusion quintet who set out to ask questions about style. Using the instrumental techniques of post-bop jazz, with the compositional structures of minimalism, especially from keys player Adam Benjamin, saxophonist Ben Wendel and...

from OttawaCitizen.com
Concert review: Kneebody in the NAC Fourth Stage, by Chris Maskell
By: Peter Hum
A serious roadblock always comes up when you attempt to describe Kneebody’s music to others. The leaderless electric quintet seems to exist in its own sphere, creating sounds that are entirely their own and happily defying the conventions of any specific genre.
To read...

From The Telegraph
Kneebody, EFG London Jazz Festival, review: ‘enchanting’
By Oliver Arnoldi
After 10 days of music from the most esteemed names in jazz, such as Marcus Miller, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Abdullah Ibrahim, it may have seemed odd that the final night of the London Jazz Festival saw Kneebody, a little-known quintet based in Los Angeles, take to...

From Willamette Week
Kneebody: Wednesday, April 9
Virtuosic electro-jazz for the indie rock generation.
By Brett Campbell
Since a diverse group of teenage CalArts and Eastman School of Music students coalesced as Kneebody in Los Angeles in 2001, the instrumental ensemble has built the kind of growing young audience most jazzers would envy. The way it incorporates rock and pop...

From Reno Gazette-Journal
Reno Jazz Fest brings together students, performers
by Michael Sion
Tonight’s concert by Kneebody ‘” a world-traveling performing and recording quintet playing trumpet, saxophone, keyboards, electric bass and drums ‘” will push jazz envelopes by blending tight ensemble playing with improvisations, and fusing in propulsive beats for an energetic set as sonically powerful as an arena-rock show....

From New Haven Register
Boundary-busting Kneebody at Firehouse 12 in New Haven
By Joe Amarante
NEW HAVEN >> With Friday night’s Spring Jazz Series band at Firehouse 12, you’ll get jazz instrumentation, for sure, but you’ll also encounter strains of electro-pop, hip-hop and classical music. And an unexpected connection to New Haven. The group’s disdain for easy categorization is reflected...